Proletarians of all countries, unite!
It is only with the Manifesto of the Communist Party, which is its full name, that for the first time the communists are putting forward their position and program and it is the starting point, the milestone or the first stone on which our whole edifice is built, all that is great Marxism-Leninism-Maoism; it is the Manifesto that remains a valid flag to communism, not as Khrushchev said: that it had finished its mission with the program of the CPSU in 1961, taking away our class position and introducing a rotten bourgeois conception, a complete and comprehensive revision of whole Marxism.2
— Chairman Gonzalo, First Congress of the Communist Party of Peru, 1988
The Manifesto is our starting point, the first milestone, milestone because it will last for thousands of years, and when there is communism it will continue to be considered as that great beginning that led to the new humanity.
177 years of struggle of the international proletariat and the peoples of the world have given us great milestones in the seizure and defense of New Power through revolutionary violence, which today can only be people’s war, where the Paris Commune of 1871, the Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia, the triumph of the Revolution in China, and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China, and at present the people’s wars in Peru, India, Turkey and the Philippines stand out.
Chairman Gonzalo, stated that “communists are components of a single class in the world, the international proletariat, which is scattered with unique, identical class interests, with an indissolubly welded destiny and derives that we must be guided by proletarian internationalism by upholding, defending, and applying the motto established in The Manifesto. A specific revolution must always be considered within the world revolution. Even more so if we are developing in the new era that began with the Great October Revolution in 1917. Communism will not take place in a single country, we all enter it or no one enters it. That is why we develop the revolution and the people’s war in Peru as part of and in service of the world revolution.”
K. Marx, F. Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party, written by K. Marx and F. Engels in December 1847-January 1848. The original is in German. First published as a pamphlet in London, February 1848.
The Manifesto of the Communist Party is the greatest programmatic document of scientific communism. “This little booklet is worth whole volumes: to this day its spirit inspires and guides the entire organized and fighting proletariat of the civilized world.”3 4
The Manifesto, as a program drafted by Marx and Engels for the League of Communists from December 1847 to January 1848, first appeared in February 1848 in London as a 23-page pamphlet. From March to July 1848, it was serially reprinted in the Deutsche Londoner Zeitung, the democratic organ of the Germanic émigrés. In the same year, a German edition of the Manifesto was reprinted in London as a 30-page pamphlet. This edition served as the basis for subsequent editions authorized by Marx and Engels. In 1848 the Manifesto was also translated into numerous European languages: French, Polish, Italian, Danish, Flemish, and Swedish. The names of the authors were not mentioned in the 1848 editions. They were initially mentioned in the editor’s preface written by George Harney for the first English translation of the Manifesto, in the Chartist journal Red Republican, which was a weekly Chartist publication published from June to November 1850 by George Harney. In its issues 21-24, November 1850, the first English translation of the Manifesto of the Communist Party appeared under the title: Manifesto of the German Communist Party.
On the initiative of the editorial staff of Der Volksstaat (People’s State) a new German edition of the Manifesto was published in 1872, with a foreword by Marx and Engels and minor corrections to the text. It bore the title Communist Manifesto and so appeared the subsequent German editions of 1883 and 1890.
The brief history of The Manifesto, with which we begin this document celebrating the 177th anniversary of its publication, has been rewritten according to the notes of the Chinese edition of the Manifesto translated into English, published by the People’s Publishing House, Beijing.
With the Manifesto of the Communist Party by Marx and Engels, the ideology of the international proletariat, in the furnace of class struggle, emerged as Marxism, becoming Marxism-Leninism, and, later, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Thus, the all-powerful scientific ideology of the proletariat, all-powerful because it is true, has three stages: 1) Marxism, 2) Leninism, 3) Maoism; three stages, moments, or milestones of its dialectical process of development; of the same unity that in one hundred and forty years, starting from the Manifesto, in the most heroic epic of the class struggle, in fierce and fruitful two-line struggles in the communist parties themselves, and the immense work of titans of thought and action that only the class could generate, standing out three unfading lights: Marx, Lenin, Mao Zedong. Through great leaps and three great ones, we are armed with the invincible Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism of today.
Marxism was born complete with its three integral parts: Marxist philosophy, Marxist political economy, and scientific socialism. The Chairman tells us: a child comes into the world with a head, a body, and limbs, and then it will develop. As Lenin said: “We take our stand entirely on the Marxist theoretical position: Marxism was the first to transform socialism from a utopia into a science, to lay a firm foundation for this science, and to indicate the path that must be followed in further developing and elaborating it in all its parts.”5 Where did Avakian get the idea that Marxism is a set of truths or thoughts of Marx, Lenin, and Mao? That eclectic position could only be the product of the fantastic movement of his head, to present himself as the “distiller of Marxism,” which led him to fall into revisionism with his farce of his pretended “New Synthesis.”
The document says: “In the furnace of class struggle, the ideology of the international proletariat emerged as Marxism, afterwards developed into Marxism-Leninism and later Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Therefore, the scientific ideology of the proletariat, all-powerful because it is true, has three stages or landmarks in its dialectical process of development: 1) Marxism, 2) Leninism, and 3) Maoism. These three stages are part of the same unity which began with the Manifesto of the Communist Party one hundred and forty years ago, with the heroic epic of the class struggle, in fierce and fruitful two-line struggles within the communist parties themselves and in the titanic work of thought and action that only the working class could generate. Today, three unfading lights are outstanding: Marx, Lenin, and Mao Zedong who, through three grand leaps have armed us with the invincible ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, which today is principally Maoism.”
It is necessary to emphasize that it is ideology of the international proletariat, because there are those who speak of science, counterposing it to Marxist ideology, forgetting that our ideology is scientific. When Engels dealt with the problem of ideology in his famous letters from 1890 to 1895, he told us that all classes prior to the proletariat had an inverted reflection of reality. What does this mean? Like the photographic camera, it inverts the figure, where the head is, it puts the feet, and vice versa. In this way, every non-proletarian ideology twists reality, deforms it, and therefore cannot understand the essence of reality, cannot understand the truth as it is, cannot grasp the contradiction as it is; therefore, non-proletarian ideologies are deformations, they are not scientific and there is one, very concrete root: they are sustained by exploitation. Or, to generalize and include all of them, they are based on the private ownership of the means of production, while the proletariat is not based on the ownership of the means of production nor on exploitation; precisely its historical mission is to destroy private ownership of the means of production in order to sweep away all exploitation and existing differences.
Thus, we must vindicate the term “ideology” in the understanding that our ideology, which is that of the international proletariat, and only of that class and not of any other, is scientific. Yes, it is scientific, but it does not take away its character of ideology. When we insist on substituting the term “ideology” for “scientific,” or “science,” we are falling into bourgeois criteria, into bourgeois philosophy centered on the theory of knowledge, that is what is at the bottom.
The revisionists always re-edit the old revisionists, such as Kautsky, who maintained that Marxism had no philosophy and that Marxist philosophy was Kantianism; that is, he put bourgeois philosophy as the basis of our conception, in the end an agnosticism, that is, an incapacity to know.
We, says Chairman Gonzalo, have to go to the point of things and take the substantive things and have a high critical spirit, to judge many or all the things that are written in the world about our conception. One could ask oneself and what does conception mean, it is the comprehension of all that exists, that means comprehension of the material world, comprehension of the class struggle, that is, of the social world, and it means comprehension of knowledge as a reflection of matter in the mind, which is another form of matter. That means conception.
Our ideas of the international proletariat, are, therefore, the product of a very high elaboration. They are more than 2,500 years of knowledge that has been reworked from the position and interests of the international proletariat. Marxism is a combative, revolutionary rupture with all previous knowledge. It is all-powerful because it is true, Lenin’s thesis proven to satiety.
[The document of the Communist Party of Peru (1988) On Marxism-Leninism-Maoism makes] a big statement here that is essential: there are three stages, first Marxism, second Leninism, third Maoism that is how it is defined. But notice that it says stages of a dialectical process of development, of course, it is a dialectical process of development. Why is it that way? Because it is a process of knowledge, a reflection in the mind, a reflection of matter in the mind and matter in movement, dialectical, knowledge is so and not by simple method as some say, but by essence, that is another mania. Methodologism is another concession to bourgeois philosophy. Is it used sometimes? Yes, but never do Marxists oppose and even less do they reduce our conception to a simple methodology. It is a crass error to get entangled in the theory of bourgeois knowledge. None of them, neither Marx, nor Lenin, nor the Chairman did it; if they talk about methods they never refer to reducing all Marxism to a simple methodological question, it would lose its quality of conception: being conception has the method as a component, as a derivation; in the end method is procedure, nothing else.
…it is important to have a dialectical process, because in reality itself and its laws correctly grasped through practice, because it is impossible to have knowledge without practice, it could not be; precisely separating theory from practice is another concession to the bourgeoisie, it is a strictly bourgeois thought, in our case of narrow empiricism of the 18th century.
The Manifesto is a starting point of the party, it has been 140 years since its appearance. Before there were attempts, precursors, if any; in Marx and Engels” own work we have their participation in the League of Communists, but that league of communists was a jumble of different ideas, it was not a clear expression of the proletariat. It is only with the Manifesto of the Communist Party, which is its full name, that for the first time the communists are putting forward their position and program and it is the starting point, the milestone or the first stone on which our whole edifice is built, all that is great Marxism-Leninism-Maoism; it is the Manifesto that remains a valid flag to communism, not as Khrushchev said: that it had finished its mission with the program of the CPSU in 1961, taking away our class position and introducing a rotten bourgeois conception, a complete and comprehensive revision of whole Marxism. Therefore, The Manifesto is our starting point, the first milestone, milestone because it will last thousands of years and when there is communism it will still be considered as that great beginning that led to the new humanity.
…it is a heroic epic of class struggle, of course, only class struggle can generate our conception, our ideology; only the proletariat with its great and incessant transformation of the material reality in their productive practice, or in the class struggle whose centre is politics, as the conquest and defence of the power for the class by overthrowing other powers, only as a practice of research, could the class, generating titans of thought and action, shape itself as the great ideology that we always hoist and will hoist. What is behind this titans of thought and action? It is linked to “three unfading lights: Marx, Lenin and Mao Zedong,”
…Engels is a founder of Marxism. Moreover, if we go into these things, it was Engels who first established a scheme of understanding the basis of society, the relations of exploitation, that is to say the Political Economy, it was him, as Marx himself recognized. But it was Marx, with the wonderful talent and capacity of action that he had, who shaped the first great height, especially recognised by Engels; it was Engels who proposed that Marx should base the new ideology.
We have five classics, Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin, but it is a pleiad, a considerable group of great figures, titans of thought and action. But let it be clear that there are three great figures: Marx, Lenin, Chairman Mao Zedong.
And how is it that our ideology is going to develop being a dialectical process? “Through great leaps and three great, of course, three 8 great qualitative leaps: Marx, Lenin, Chairman Mao Zedong. But these three great qualitative leaps could not be understood without other big, medium and even small leaps and with these incessant leaps, which we do not consider as such because of their elementary magnitude. That is the fact, that is what this first paragraph implies, all that is its background. It is in this way that a great dialectical process, then, generated by the proletariat producing men that only the class can produce, that we have arrived at Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism.”
In essence, what does it mean to not recognize “ism,” to not recognize “Maoism”? “The ‘ism’ has a clear meaning; ‘thought’ is nothing but a set of ideas, nothing else, while ‘ism’ is a doctrine that interprets all the matter in its different ways of expression, which are the three above mentioned: nature, society, knowledge, and stop counting, there is nothing else.” God, from the head comes out then, by social product; Satan, from the head comes out by social elaboration. You see, there is nothing, nothing escapes that. “I said ‘doctrine.’ I stress, I did not say ‘system.’ If you say ‘system,’ you would be making a big mistake. Engels has already expressly analysed this point, but some people who use ‘system’ make a grave error, the correct thing to say is ‘doctrine,’ understanding it as we have just specified it.”
So it is The Essential Point, it is the “ism.” We are told, for example, what is the difference between Mao-Zedong-Thought and Maoism? If the same truths are held or defended, why fight for that term? It is not simply a problem of the term; what is at stake is whether it has universal validity or not, and if it is “ism” then it has it, and if it is not “ism” then it does not. That is the problem, so it is not a problem of term, isn’t it? Well, if things were like that it would be identical,
Finally, from the document of the First Congress of the Communist Party of Peru we quote:
The Communist Party of Peru, through the faction led by Chairman Gonzalo, who propelled its reconstitution, took up Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought in 1966; in 1979 the slogan “Uphold, defend, and apply Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought!”; in 1981: “Towards Maoism!”; and, in 1982, took Maoism as an integral part and higher development of the ideology of the international proletariat: Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. It is with the people’s war that we have understood more deeply what Maoism implies and we have taken up the solemn pledge to “Uphold, defend, and apply Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism!” and to work relentlessly in helping to place it as leader and guide of the world revolution, the always red and unfading banner that is the guarantee of triumph for the proletariat, the oppressed nations, and peoples of the world in their inexorable, combative march of iron legions towards the golden and always brilliant goal of communism.
Glory to the international proletariat!
Long live the world proletarian revolution!
Long live the people’s war in Peru, India, Turkey, and the Philippines!
Uphold, defend, and apply Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism!